Learn Python

Find out, how to learn Python

One of the most frequently asked question in our Community, is how to learn Python? To answer this question, we have curated a list of books, websites and courses which many of us used to get started with Python. But we are not the only ones who have done this. There is also the official Beginners Guide which features many options to choose from and the Non Programmers guide in the Python wiki, you should know about.

If Python is your first programming language and if you just start out, the Python documentation itself might be a little hard to read or understand at first but over time, this will become your most important source of information about it. You should definitely check it out from time to time, when you feel more comfortable with the language.

Books #

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python #

Free Online Paid Book

“Automate the Boring Stuff with Python” by Al Sweigart et al. is the most recommended books in the Community. It focuses on people who have never written any line of code and teaches them the basics of Python.

Website: https://automatetheboringstuff.com

Read for free: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/#toc

ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-992-9

Websites #

Python Tutorial #

The Python Tutorial by Bernd Klein was created in 2010 around the idea to take a different approach in teaching python. He uses comprehensible examples and illustrates them with various graphics.

Website: https://python-course.eu

Videos #

YouTube: Corey Schafer’s Python Tutorials #

Corey Schafer created well over 100, free to watch, videos about Python, dedicated to newcomers. In addition they feature many free courses for Pandas, Matplotlib, Flask, Django, even git and SQL, and many more.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Coreyms/featured

Courses #

CS50P - Introduction to Programming with Python #

The course CS50P - Introduction to Programming with Python by David J. Malan of the Harvard University was created with the main focus on its students. Nevertheless, he made it available for everyone else too, as OpenCourseWare. He also encourages teachers to use his materials in class. You get the full videos, slides, notes, and problem sets for you to work through. The course itself is part of a series of courses that might also interest you later on. For example:

• CS50x - Introduction to Computer Science (OpenCourseWare; not Python exclusive) by David J. Malan ; Harvard University
• CS50w - Web Programming with Python and JavaScript (OpenCourseWare) by Brian Yu ; Harvard University
• CS50AI - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python (OpenCourseWare) by Brian Yu ; Harvard University

Website: https://cs50.harvard.edu/python/2022/

Talks and Conferences #

If you already know the basics of Python you might be interested in checking out some talks about Python and it’s ecosystem:

• PyCon
• EuroPython

Other Courses #

• Introduction to SQL (SQL)